


waiting for the sirens

by thequeenofokay



Series: i didn't know that we could break a silver lining [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3237782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeenofokay/pseuds/thequeenofokay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a tap on the window, and he looks out to see a girl standing on the street below. She has one hand on her hip and the other holds a handful of gravel that she must have been throwing at the window.</p>
<p>'Are you the new kid?' she asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>//the skyeward peter pan au if neverland was hidden in london suburbs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	waiting for the sirens

**Author's Note:**

> \+ peter pan au!!
> 
> \+ sorry this is so weird and bad and can i just call it surreal as an excuse. also i actually wrote skyeward. i tried and therefore we should just. not criticise me.
> 
> \+ title from "peter" by daughter. //wipes away tear.

He's almost fifteen when the accident happens. That's what his family call it anyway. An accident.

The decide it's better if he's out of the way for a while. Military school is discussed, but even that is a little too close to home for them.

They send him off to his grandmother in London. Away from the press and the cameras that might ruin the campaigns of his parents or the chances of his brother, who was _born_  to be a political legacy.

No one will think to look for him in amongst the rows and rows of terraced houses. And his family knows it.

They fly him out at the beginning of the summer. His grandmother seems nice enough. Better than what he left, at least, but there's not much that could be worse.

(He just worries, every night, what will happen to Thomas and Rosie without him there.)

It’s been almost a week when there’s a tap on the window in the evening, as the sun is setting.

There’s a girl standing on the street below.

She has one hand on her hip and the other holds a handful of gravel that she must have been throwing at the window.

'Are you the new kid?' she asks.

'I guess?' he says. His first reaction should have been suspicion, but it's curiosity. His _second_  reaction is suspicion. 'Who are you?' he asks.

She tilts her head like she's considering. 'Can I come up?' she asks.

He tries to say "no, absolutely not", but she's already jumped up onto the wall so she can get to his window.

Against his better judgement, he moves back so she can get through. She slips inside and lands on his carpet with a soft thud.

She looks a little younger than his, in shorts with her hair tied up.

'I'm Skye,' she says.

'Grant,' he says.

'You're American?' she asks.

He doesn't give any explanation, and instead points out, 'So are you.'

She shrugs. 'Foster kid,' she says, which also doesn't really explain it. 'I live in the home down the road.'

'You should come tomorrow, and meet the guys,' she says. 'The lost boys.'

 

*

 

The lost boys is a deceptive name, because not all Skye's friends are boys.

('It sounded good at the time, okay?' Skye says.)

They're gathered in the back corner of the park, shouting over each other.

('We used to call it Neverland when we were kids,' Skye tells him. 'Back when there was less of us.')

He's not sure if they're her friends, or her group, or something else. Whatever they are, she seems to be their leader.

Her second in command, or best friend, or something, is a petite Irish girl in a flower dress, who hovers at her elbow and stares at him with a look somewhere between curiosity and disapproval when he arrives.

'This is Raina,' Skye tells him, gesturing to the girl in the flower dress. 'That's Fitz, Jemma, Lance...' She points to the rest, in turn, and some of them are listeing enough to wave.

He nods, trying to memorise the names she gives him. 'Guys,' she calls, 'this is Grant. He's the new kid.'

They smile and greet him, and it surprises him a little because it feels _genuine_. Like they want him there (and, stupid and sentimental and weak as it may be, he doesn't feel quite as alone as he did).

They stay in the back of the park until late into the evening. He tries to mostly keep with Skye, but he's sitting with Fitz and Jemma (who Lance seems to affectionately refer to as a single unit, and Grant thinks they might be _together_ ), when Skye jumps to her feet and points across the park.

'Fuck,' she curses, 'fuck, it's Quinn.'

The whole group around her freezes, and then scramble up and shout in panic, and Grant feels like he's missing something.

'Everybody go,' she orders, and there's excitement, exhilaration in her voice.

'What's going on?' he tries to ask, but she just grabs his hand and runs.

She doesn't stop until they're three streets from the park, and Skye is wheezing and laughing at the same time, doubles over and leaning against the wall.

'Sorry,' she pants. 'But Quinn showed up.' She straightens as she regains her breath. 'The guy is a total _dick_. He's reported us to the police like, a dozen times for _nothing_.' She makes a face at the thought of the man. 'He's the landlord of a lot of the houses round here, and he keeps putting the rent up,' she explains. 'Total. Dick.'

He doesn't argue with her. He might not have known her long, but he already knows it would be totally pointless.

Not that he minds, really.

She's different and bolder and brighter and more alive than anyone he met back home in Massachusetts. He doesn't mind different.

 

*

 

‘You know what we should do?’ Skye says. She smiles, and he realised not long after he met her, he realised it’s like looking at the sun. Her group leans in around her, waiting for whatever small battle she's going to lead them into next. ‘We should take Quinn down.’

She says it with a defiance, like nothing could go wrong, like she’s unstoppable. Not like they are a bunch of teenagers against an adult who, all things considered, could get them into a hell of a lot of trouble.

Jemma looks uncertain. ' _Skye_ ,' she says, and her voice suggests she's somewhere between disapproval and weariness. 'I don't think we can.'

'No, hear me out, right,' Skye says. She's almost bouncing with excitement, and Grant hates to think of it being ruined. 'I _know_  there's dirt on the guy. He's involved with, y'know, illegal stuff.'

'Drugs,' Lance says. 'Please just say drugs.'

Skye rolls her eyes. 'Fine. Raina knows he's involved with drugs. We just need proof. We just need to break in, find the evidence, and then he can't touch us.'

Lance laughs. 'Because _that_  isn't a big ask at _all_.'

Jemma frowns. 'Skye,' she says slowly. 'What you're suggesting is... blackmail.'

Skye grins. 'Yep,' she says. 'Exactly.'

Lance shrugs. 'I'm definitely in, then,' he says.

'Me too,' Fitz says, and Jemma's mouth is set in a tight line but she sighs, and they all know that if Fitz is in, Jemma is too.

There's no question that Raina will be (she hasn't spoken up yet, which means she isn't planning disagreeing), and he supposes that there's no question that he is, either.

(Grant wonders what exactly he's letting himself in for.)

 

*

 

Grant has, personally, thought it's an appalling idea from the beginning. He should maybe have said something before it was too late, because of the whole group there are only two people Skye will listen to -- him and Raina.

He should have said something.

But he didn't.

They are standing in Quinn's living room, and it's a wreck. There's smashed glass and broken furniture, and Skye is still at it, taking a cricket bat to the bookshelves like they've personally harmed her.

'Skye,' he says. 'You should probably stop now.'

She doesn't hear him, doesn't stop for a breath as she _destroys_.

He sees glimpses of something dark and twisted inside her sometimes, and they are glimpses he doesn't understand but has tried to push aside. This is not a glimpse. This is it thrown up onto the surface for everyone to see.

‘ _Skye_ ,’ he says, harder, ‘you have to stop. Please.’

She blinks like she's being pulled from a dream, and takes a step back. Quinn’s things are in ruins at her feet, and behind them, the whole group is staring.

‘Sorry,’ she says. Her voice is a little hoarse. ‘Sorry.’ Her shoulders drop as she looks at what she’s done in something like horror. ‘I forgot…’ she begins, but she shakes her head and doesn't finish. ‘We should leave.’

She stumbles back, towards the door, only pausing to pull their blackmail note from the pocket of her shorts and leave it on the coffee table. He sees her check her back pocket one last time, just to confirm that the evidence they found is still there, before she almost runs for the front door.

He moves to follow her as she heads down the straight, but Raina stops him, pushing him back with a strength that will never cease to surprise him.

'I've got it,' she bites.

She is off down the street after Skye before he can argue.

 

*

 

Quinn doesn't try touch them after that.

 

*

 

Skye’s arm slides around him, and he almost shivers.

She looks up at him, her eyes bright and shining and hiding constellations, and she uncurls her fist, revealing glittering powder. ‘You want some?’ she asks. Her voice drops as she whispers, ‘It’s fairy dust.’

'Where did you get it?' he asks. She leans closer into him, and he tells himself it's just against the cold of the night.

'Raina,' she says.

(He wouldn't say anything against Raina, because he knows how much she means to Skye, but the girl seems to do nothing but drag Skye down.

_It's not his place_ , he reminds himself.

It's not his place. Raina is like family to Skye, and all he has been is a friend for barely a couple of years.

He doesn't mean as much to her.)

He looks at the powder in her palm. It looks like the kind of thing that could destroy an election campaign if someone like his brother was to be found with it.

He's not his brother.

 

*

 

He is sixteen when Raina pulls him away from the rest of the group, her hand tight around his bicep, nails digging in.

‘You love her,’ she says.

Not a question, and not _you fancy her_  or _you like her_.

_You love her_.

It throws him.

‘What?’ he asks.

She lets go, tilting her head slowly and frowning. ‘Oh,’ she says. A smile grows across her red lips. (He’s never seen her without makeup. Jemma hardly wears it and Skye can’t always be bothered, but Raina always has red lips and dark eyes and she will never stop scaring him slightly.)

'You don't know,' she says. She laughs, at a joke he doesn't get. 'You've always been so sweet.'

She pats his chest, and he feels like she might be insulting him.

'Don't hurt her,' she says. 'Don't you dare hurt her.'

'I would _never_ ,' he says, and he doesn't understand where she would have got the idea from.

Her eyes are dark (they have always been so much darker than Skye's), and her nails start to dig in where her hand is still on his chest. 'It's me and her,' she says. 'You'll leave, and it will _always_  be us.'

He wants to say he won't leave, but he can't promise that. He knows Raina would see through him, anyway. He's not going to lie to Raina. He's not stupid. 'I know,' he says.

'Everyone tries to hurt us,' she says.

'I _won't_ ,' he insists. 'Ever.'

She's smiling again, but she's too close and he's still on edge, and her nails are still biting into his chest. She nods, and her fingers finally release their grip. 'Good,' she says. She takes a step away from him, and he lets out a breath. 'We've been here a long time, Grant. I'm not going to let you ruin her.'

 

*

 

Raina is getting darker, but Skye doesn't seem to have noticed. Or doesn't want to notice. Or doesn't care. He's not sure which. He's not sure he wants to know.

He knows she's mixed up with people worse than the lost boys, in with drugs worse than the ones that they take.

It's a Sunday night when she stumbles into Neverland holding her stomach, and collapses on the cold grass, her feet going out from under her. She doesn't make a sound, but he can see her wince every time she breathes.

'Raina?' Skye asks, her voice too high, and Grant tries to help her to her feet.

She hisses in pain, trying to brush him away.

There's red spreading across her dress, soaking across the flowers.

Skye lets out something like a sob, one hand holding onto Grant and the other onto Raina.

'No,' she mumbles. 'No, no, no.' She looks at Grant with a lost desperation that jars him, contrasting sharply with the leader -- if a reckless one -- that she normally is.

He nods, and turns to the group gathered behind them 'Someone call 999,' he says, steady as he can. 'We needs to get her to hospital.'

They stay all night in the waiting room. Skye cries against his shoulder, and stroking her hair, holding her to him doesn't seem wrong. He whispers, 'It'll be okay,' until the sun rises, even though he shouldn't make promises he can't keep.

He figures that maybe, if he says it enough, it'll come true. He knows that's not how the world works. He knows he needs to grow up.

But not tonight.

In the morning (he thinks it's morning, anyway, or at least, enough time has passed that Skye has been sleeping against his chest for a few hours), the doctor tells them Raina will be okay.

Skye slumps against him in relief, and he catches her and holds her like it's the easiest thing in the world. (It is.)

'Thank god,' she murmurs, her hand fisted in her shirt. 'Thank god, I don't know what I'd have done if...'

'Don't,' he says, and kisses her forehead, and she twists round to kiss him properly.

They stay, in the middle of the waiting room, holding onto each other. They stay until it finally hits them that the world hasn't stopped, and they still have school and responsibilities and that they can't stay there forever.

She walks back with him as far as his grandmother's house, and stops at the gate.

'Thank you,' she says. Too quietly.

He nods.

He wasn't supposed to let her get hurt, but she there's still tears in her eyes, and he thinks he might have failed.

He also thinks Raina might have meant something different by  _don't hurt her_.

 

*

 

(He isn't sure what he and Skye are to each other.

He knows he needs her.

He knows she'll tell him she needs him when she's drunk or tired or high; he knows the rest of the time she pretends she needs no one.

Whatever he is to her, he'll take it.)

 

*

 

By the time he is eighteen most of the lost boys have gone. Jemma has left for university. Fitz's mother moved him north after he barely recovered from a car accident. Lance has been in and out of prison for possession, and Grant doesn’t know when he’s coming out this time.

Everyone else has drifted off they knew and left only phone numbers and promises of _i’ll come back_.

Only Skye and Raina are left.

It’s not the same, and it cannot be the same. Raina spends more time disappearing into dark streets than she does with them now.

It is just Grant and Skye now. It is just the two of them. It is just the two of them, and they pretend it’s fine like that.

She kisses him more often, these days, and she holds his hand too tightly. She's stayed the night a few times, and complains every morning when she has to leave.

He feels like they've been living in a bubble; a tiny, screwed up paradise, cut off from the real world.

He knows it has to end soon. He knows it, even when Skye smiles, and insists that this is perfect, that nothing has to change.

He knows it has to end.

 

*

 

He is eighteen when his family calls for the first time since he left. They give him four days and tell him to pack his things.

He wants to call Skye straight away, but he doesn't.

He gives it a day, then two.

On the third night, there's a tapping on his window. Skye is standing below, hands on her hips.

He doesn't invite her in, but she jumps up onto the wall and across to his window anyway, with more ease and grace than that first night.

'What happened?' she asks. 'I haven't seen you in days.'

'I have to go home,' he says.

She laughs like she doesn't understand, but there's something in her eyes. He knows she does.

'You're already home,' she says. 'Here. This is your home.'

He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. 'Back to Massachusetts.'

She stares at him. 'You're leaving.'

'I don't have a choice.' He can see her walls being thrown up around her, see the anger coming down.

She laughs. 'You don't have a choice? You're going back to your family mansion and then to an Ivy League university, aren't you?'

' _Skye_ ,' he says. He shouldn't let her get to him -- he knows, logically he knows, that she's just angry and upset, but it _stings_. 'You have to know I would give anything to be here instead.'

'Why aren't you fighting them, then?' she asks. 'You're just giving in to them. You're supposed to fight.'

'Skye,' he sighs. 'That's not how real life works.'

She recoils from his like he's hit her, eyes wide. 'You're saying that you're just going to do as you're told? Because you're an _adult_  now?'

He shakes his head. 'Look,' he says. 'You'll understand, okay? You just need to...'

She raises an eyebrow. 'Need to _what_?'

He takes a breath. 'Grow up, Skye,' he says. 'You need to grow up.'

She turns away. 'Everyone has left,' she says, looking out the window instead of at him. 'Now you too. You're all abandoning me.'

'You still have Raina,' he reminds her.

She laughs, but it's harsh and not like when she was younger. 'Raina's an eighteen year old drug dealer, Grant,' she says. 'I don't think I can rely on her any more.'

He doesn't argue.

'And everyone else is _gone_ ,' she continues. 'And they told me the same thing as you -- stop dreaming.'

She laughs again, and god, he hates her new laugh.

'I never thought you'd say that,' she murmurs. He can see her frowning, eyebrows furrowed, in the way that suggests she's holding back tears, and pretends he can't.

'When do you leave?' she asks, only once the silence has stretched far, far too long.

'First thing tomorrow morning,' he says.

She turns back to him, silhouetted against the window. 'So this is it?' she says. 'This is the last time I'll see you.'

'I don't know,' he says, because the answer is _yes_  and he doesn't want to give it.

'Will you visit?' she asks. 'Please visit.'

There's something in her voice, something desperate and awful and broken, that tells him he has to try and reassure her, so he lies.

'Yes,' he says. 'Of course I'll visit. And you can always call.'

She nods. 'Good,' she says. 'You better.'

He could say something more. He could tell her that he's pretty sure she was the first girl he ever loved, or that he hates that it has to end like this, with them ripped apart with an ocean in between. That he wishes he could have stayed, because they could have had everything.

But it all seems a little too late, so he says nothing.

He kisses her, softly, instead, and she lets him, moving onto her tiptoes.

'Bye, Grant,' she says. She frowns again, chewing on her lip. 'We had fun.'

He nods. 'Goodbye, Skye,' he says.

He watches when she slips back out the window. He watches until she's disappeared round the corner at the end of the street, and he doesn't think about the fact that she didn't look back.

 

*

 

She calls him, three years later.

He's well into his law course at Harvard, and out with his fiancé, the one his family close to hand picked for him.

Her name doesn't come up because he never programmed her into his new phone, but he recognises the number without it.

'Is it important?' his fiance asks.

It takes him a second to answer.

(It had been so important. It had been so important that he never hurt Skye. But it's too late.)

'It doesn't matter,' he says.

He doesn't pick up.


End file.
